You can't have your cake and eat it too
by meyers

Comment:
Cute :)
Impressive cake-fall action shot.

City Shapes
by JPR

Comment:
Posthumous? Maybe?

Very cool shot anyway :)

why fly high?
by skewsme

Comment:
What a gorgeous picture. The mist and the light are wonderfully mystical, and the lone bird just completes the feel of it.

Why Wait for a Mammogram?
by fotomann_forever

Comment:

Originally posted by anahory: this photo is a fraud!breast palpation does not substitute mammography and this kind of message is misleading! (by the way who would want to steal this snapshot?...don ´t put such a rude advise!)

This comment is a personal attack which is entirely misguided. Regarding the first part - the photo encourages early self-examination rather than putting people off mammograms, that seems reasonably obvious to me. As for the second part - how rude! Just who do you think you are? Actually, no, wait, don't answer that. Please.

Great photo Leroy :) Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

60 Years Later, Still So Much Hate
by levyj413

Comment:
Very good concept.

As for the emotional reaction - I'm afraid I'm either too young or too ignorant (or both). I spent about a minute staring at the photo not understanding what the shiny star had to do with the title. Then I read your description. Now that it's sinking in, I'm starting to get there.

The concept works very well. The processing, the crop and the relatively simple colours and shapes all work well together to illustrate dehumanisation, which I guess would be the necessary starting point of all hate crimes ever committed.

With this kind of simple, iconic imagery, it's necessary for it to be very recognisable in order to get the emotional reaction. Somehow, thinking about it at length before you get it takes away from it, because it's targeted to have immediate impact. So I'm guessing it would hit some people, but not others.

Another element of that would be how strongly the viewer agrees with the message. Personally I'd be more hit, for example, by an image about violence against women, or homophobia, or Amnesty style human rights stuff. I guess it's just not in my head that anti-semitism is a major problem at the moment, or not any more so than other hate crimes. But then again, I'm not Jewish.

Anyway, so I think the picture is well executed, but that it would only have a strong emotional impact on a select audience. However, it's all good as long as you captured the message you wanted to capture.

Pure Craving
by photokariangel

Comment:
Ack, I saw the thumbnail and started craving a latte! I blame you! :)

On the technical side of things: good concept, good composition, but the first thing you notice are the signs of oversharpening. Maybe use a greater DOF so the entire thing is in sharp focus?
Though hey, I like it anyway...

Death Is Two Steps Behind
by jaysonmc

Comment:
Ingmar Bergman would be proud. I love it.

Matthew 4:19 - Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.
by fotomann_forever

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club.

I gave this image a 4 during voting. But looking at your comments and scores, there seems to be a bunch of people who appreciated it a lot more than I did, so I guess it might be down to personal preference.

I did like the concept - it fits the challenge perfectly, but in an original way. The old bible is perfect for the shot, and the composition is good - it's like the bible is asking to be followed.

My biggest objection was to the lighting. It seems really quite harsh at the bottom right, and it's coming from an angle which still leaves the fishing rods somewhat indistinct. I also thought the dark bits at the back were too much in contrast with the harsh lighting at the front. I guess I would have preferred either light coming from the top right corner of the picture (cliched divine light metaphor style of thing, probably not that great for lighting up the subject matter), or a similar enough layout, but slightly more subtly, evenly done - where there are still highlights and shadows, but the front is more gently lit, and the back isn't completely black. I would've been tempted to light-paint the subject using a flashlight - that gives you some interesting options.

I also would have prefered a slightly different camera angle - maybe raising it slightly so that the Bible looks a bit less flat and the figure was brought to life a bit more.

However, as I said, I do seem to be representing a minority view, so there are probably a lot of people who really liked the features I find objectionable...

Well done on an interesting entry anyway :)

Holy Spirit
by Shaman

Comment:
Wow, just noticed this came 35th at a 5.9 score?! The DPL really is doing strange things... Well done though, that picture deserved to do well :)

Lit From Above
by MaryO

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club.

I gave this image a 5 during voting, and on second look, I think I underrated it. The composition is interesting, and there's lovely geometry present in the picture.

Conceptually it works well. The religious belief content of the picture is obvious, but effective - yes, divine light, lit from above, etc. The angle and composition work very well for this. Another thing that could be read into it is that everything in the picture comes in 3's, so there could be a reference to Jesus and the holy trinity in there somewhere.

However, what doesn't work well for me about this picture is that Jesus doesn't come across effectively as the main subject of the picture. A viewer's eye tends to go towards the areas of highlight first, so the first thing I looked at were the 3 little round windows, which seem to be a bit too prominent. The eye then travels towards the big glass window/ceiling thing, and you only notice Jesus as a sort of afterthought. Now, since this is in advanced editing, there's a considerable amount of control you have over this in pp - using a soft light layer and painting white across jesus and black across all the windows (and playing with the opacity to make the adjustments subtle) would have potentially improved the picture a lot. Also, burning the shadows on the statue at a low opacity can make the picture subtly more dramatic.

Also, a technical point: overall the exposure is good, but some of the window highlights seem a bit blown, using a shorter exposure might have helped. Even if it gives a slightly underexposed picture, you can bring out the subject in pp, whereas blown highlights are difficult to get rid of.

Overall I'd say this is an interesting entry which scored well, but with some improvements, it could have done even better. Well done anyway.